A conventional internal combustion engine attains mechanical energy from the expenditure of chemical energy of fuel burned in a combustion chamber, and is well known in the art. Conventional internal combustion engines customarily have a crankshaft that is used to transmit mechanical energy from a series of pistons to a main power output shaft. Internal combustion engines also conventionally include a cylindrical combustion chamber around which several pistons are positioned. Each piston extends and retracts around the combustion chamber, which varies the volume provided in the chamber between the inner face of the piston and the closed end of the cylinder. The outer face of the piston is attached to the crankshaft by a connecting rod, and the crankshaft thereby transforms the reciprocating motion of the piston into rotary motion.
The conventional circular path circumscribing conventional crankshafts provides several problems. First, the piston and cylinder wall is worn by "piston slide slap", wherein the pistons consistently make contact with the cylinder walls due to side forces. Additionally, the geometric area of rotating mass of the conventional rotor is also the cause of significant engine vibrations.